


They're All True

by DestielsDestiny



Category: Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, Star Wars - All Media Types
Genre: 2018, Alternate Universe - Sentinels & Guides, Bamf Garak, Bigotry & Prejudice, Canon-Typical Violence, Cardassians, Dark Past, Discussion of past Torture, Father-Son Relationship, Gen, Genetic Engineering, Guide Julian Bashir, Hate Crimes, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Implied/Referenced Domestic Violence, Implied/Referenced Rape/Non-con, Implied/Referenced Self-Harm, Implied/Referenced Torture, Little Black Dress, M/M, POV Elim Garak, POV Julian Bashir, Past Rape/Non-con, Post-Canon Cardassia, Racism, Recovery, Reunions, Revelations, Secrets, Sentinel Garak, Sentinel/Guide Bonding, Starvation, Tain's A+ Parenting, The Bashirs A+ Parenting, aftermath of war, discussion of past murder
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-09-14
Updated: 2019-01-26
Packaged: 2019-07-12 03:50:44
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 7,908
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15987017
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DestielsDestiny/pseuds/DestielsDestiny
Summary: In the aftermath of the Dominion War, Julian Bashir finds himself existing in a sort of limbo, going through the motions on a Station devoid of any of the people who once made it his home. A dozen parsecs away, Elim Garak struggles to bring some semblance of order to the chaos that is Cardassia Prime, his home world forever altered by the ravages of war. When Section 31 comes knocking on Julian’s door, events are set in motion that will draw them back together once more, and uncover secrets neither of them ever dreamt of, about their pasts, their relationship, and perhaps, even, their future.





	1. Part 1: Turning On, Chapter 1: Lizards Can't Swim

**Author's Note:**

> Most of the warning tags, including minor character deaths, refer to things that have occured before this story begins. However, as it is set post-series on a Cardassia that has been nearly obliterated by war, it deals with and discusses a lot of dark themes. Please mind the tags and warnings accordingly.   
> But on the whole, this is a story of hope and healing, as well as one of devastation and loss.

Lizards, as Julian once pointed out to Elim, were actually rather good swimmers.

“In fact, the iguanas that are indigenous to the Galapagos islands on Earth are prolific swimmers, capable of diving to depths of twenty-five metres or more. It’s quite extraordinary!” The doctor had punctuated his point by twirling a loaded fork in Garak’s general direction, his eyes alight and features animated in that simple, joyous way he’d demonstrated so often before the war.

Watching that light fade from his dear doctor’s eyes had been one of the most excruciating experiences of Garak’s far from uneventful or painless life.

Then–blissfully, if somewhat willfully–ignorant of the events that would steer their friendship so far off its original, charming course, Elim had simply smiled benignly as his young friend, and reminded him without rancor, if not without a touch of sarcasm, that, “But my dear doctor, as you, with your _vast_ medical expertise, are not doubt aware, cardassians are _not_ iguanas.”

Julian’s laughter had been full bodied and out of proportion, but Elim had reveled in the warmth of the sound.

Now, as thick brown water rushed against his ear canals with alarming force, Garak found himself longing to hear that sound again, even if just once more.

This was _supposed_ to be a routine outing. Elim slid his eyes shut and stroked through the water, flipping over and surfacing in one smooth movement. _Routine_ being the operative word, rather than safe. Nothing was safe on Cardassia Prime in these bleak days. Much less here, only steps from what was once the very center of Lakarian City.

Sliding his eyes back open, Elim searched vainly for his quarry, finding only twisted branches and clumps of mud, broken stone work sticking out of the flood waters here and there.

He forced his ear canals to strain, past the slapping of water and distant shouts from the shore.

Nothing. Kicking against something heavy and slushy beneath the surface, Garak launched himself in another direction.

“Keep your head down!” The good doctor had never _quite_ managed to lure Elim into a game of racket ball. Nor tennis, or soccer, or anything else absurdly physical and “quintessentially British”, whatever that signified. Swimming, however…well, he couldn’t simply _let_ that iguana comment go, now could he?

Garak remembers attempting to turn over in the crystal-clear water of the pool, earning a face full of oddly tasting liquid for his trouble. “What do they _put_ in this? I warn you doctor, if this is an attempt to poison me, it is a _distressingly_ amateurish one.” Julian had simply swum up to him with not inconsiderable ease, all grace and effortless power, carefully propping his hands along Elim’s shoulder ridges, laughter bubbling up and echoing around the deserted pool.

“Gar _ak_ , stop squirming, I’m just trying to stop you from drowning! With all those scales you’d sink to the bottom like a rock. Here, follow my movements. See how I’m kicking, first left then right? That’s called treading water.” It had taken a considerable amount of time on both their parts, to say nothing of effort on his, but eventually, the doctor had declared him a more than passable swimmer.

Naturally, nearly ten years would pass before he had occasion to use that particular skillset. Not that Elim had ever regretted the hours spent. He was a firm believer in the benefit of the long game after all.

To say nothing of the pleasure of the dear doctor’s company. Garak is _very_ certain that the doctor’s touches and gestures were innocently meant, the man having no way of guessing, much less understanding, the significance of such intimacy to a cardassian. Particularly in the shoulder region.

Elim nearly blushed in remembrance, despite the frigid cold that had long since begun to seep any residual warmth out of his scales. Cardassians may not be lizards, but the analogy was not without its accuracies.

Cardassians, even children, could go without drawing in a breath for several times longer than even the most accomplished humans. However, such an advantage was rendered more than useless by the frigid temperatures of the flood waters currently raging through the city.

In his work for the provisional government, Garak was often tasked with walking the more dangerous areas of the city to check on damage sites. He frequently has to restrain his laughter at the utter lack of subtlety exhibited by the last remnants of the “old guard”, many of them long-time associates of his own father.

Their sheer stupidity was the more worrying aspect by far however, for if they could not even read a man they’d known since he was a small boy well enough to understand that Garak would firstly, never be the sort of citizen to be assassinated so easily, and secondly, felt it was his duty to see to the safety of other citizens, rather than a punishment, then there was not much hope for those currently in power.

It was just as well, Garak mused, that _provisional_ was proving to be a rather apt description of the current regime. The Cardassia of his father was long dead, and it was far, far better for all involved that is remain that-

There! It was very faint, but Garak could just make out the weakest of cries. He pushed downward in the choppy water, raising himself high enough to call out to the other would-be rescuers on the shore, “She’s over here!” The cry came again, fainter, still strangely muffled.

There had been quite a gathering already assembled on the edge of what used to be a three-story building, a distraught mother calling urgently over the water for her offspring, now long since vanished under the sloshing debris.

Those gathered had been starting to give up, to turn away or urge the mother to accept the inevitable before Garak even finished asking what had happened. He had been inclined to agree with the sentiment, if heavier hearted with it than many of those gathered.

And then he’d heard the noise. The noise no one else heard, not even the child’s mother. The noise he _shouldn’t_ have been able to hear, dozens of metres and hundreds of galleons of water away. And yet.

Elim cocked his head, receiving a mouthful of muddy water for his trouble. The noise was coming from below him. Garak groaned inwardly, taking in the rising water, the choppiness owing to the stiff wind whistling through what had once been a bustling city square.

Oh, if only Tain could see him now. Snatching as deep a breath as he dared, Elim flattened his body out _“keep yourself as streamline as possible, it aids propulsion”_ and dove beneath the murky surface.

00

“Well doctor, if that’s all the reports-” Colonel Kira broke off abruptly, as her companion stiffened in his seat, a distant look overcoming his face. “Julian?” Kira reached out a hand to lay along the doctor’s arm, only to be forced to stumble back by the man’s abrupt lurch forward, his hands flying to his head, his eyes squeezing shut. “Julian!”

Bashir twisted away from her searching hands, face contorted and muscles locked. Kira slapped the intercom button on his desk, “Get a medic in here, now!” Her words were abruptly cut short by a scream rending the air, loud, shattering, almost primal. A scream that formed into a word, towards the end.

“Elim!” And as the name left the doctor’s lips, for just the barest flashes of a moment, Kira could swear she saw a shape, colourful and scaly and hissing, twining about Julian’s arms.

Then in the next second, it was gone. As if it had never been there at all.


	2. The Lies We Tell Ourselves

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Garak doesn't drown, Julian searches for answers, and Quark has a squirrel. Sort of.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Julian is a guide, Garak is a sentinel, however their abilities are somewhat complicated by the long suppression of both their gifts/identities by various parties, which has caused their distinct abilities to become somewhat…blurred, shall we say. More details on that, and on how their abilities will actually work, will be revealed in later chapters. Also, I am borrowing from fanon and giving Cardassians tails, at least as adolescents.

“Minister! Minister, can you hear me?” Garak blinked, his eyes slitting more from confusion than excess moisture. The dominant ingredient of these pools was decidedly not water.

A small tail whapped against his head, and Elim twisted in the shallow water to watch his former cargo launch herself at her waiting relative–her mother, judging by the scale patterns.

Barely three Prime cycles old by the looks of her, and already cautious enough to make for the safety of her parent instead of cling to her previous transport. Or worse yet, _thank_ him.

Elim meets the mother’s eyes for but a moment, watching caution war with gratitude in her eyes, watching her scales brighten just enough to know that caution won, and gives a decisive nod before turning to his obsequiously frantic attendant.

“Talis,” the queries stopped completely. An obvious tell. Too obvious, Garak reflected with a scoff, just imagining how Tain would have reacted to such a mistake, “You may tell Minister Ghur that everything is in order in this sector, apart from those previously noted.” Elim slanted a meaningful glance at the water swirling beside them, before finding a purchase in the mud under his palms and pushing himself upwards.

At the edge of the flood waters, the mother and child have melted into the crowd. Garak took a sombre comfort in that. They may yet survive, both of them, if they continued to display such laudable caution, even in the most trying of circumstances.

Especially if, he reflected with a sigh, as he made it to his knees in the sludgy water and paused for a moment to watch Talis hurry though the onlookers, paying not a thought to either safety or potential injury to other parties, the current interim government continued as it was.

It did not seem to _occur_ to any of his esteemed superiors that infrastructure and famine relief were of _far_ more crucial and _immediate_ importance than rebuilding their military strength or shoring up their borders. Or further lining their pockets, he thought sarcastically, as a piece of nearby roof sheered off and fell into the water below, splattering Elim’s eye ridges with yet more mud.

Garak waded slowly out of the water, keeping his eyes a careful, yet equidistant length between the ground and the sky. Despite his caution however, the remaining scatter of onlookers vanished like smoke into the rapidly darkening landscape of the northern block.

Elim paused on the shore, as a slight flicker of movement caught his eye. The figure was small, scales near black with grime, and consequently nearly invisible in the shadowy depths of a once magnificent window frame. He remembered Mila whispering of this square’s beauty in his ear once, lifetimes ago.

She always had adored the simple beauty of the old architectural masters.

Garak flicked his eyelids for a moment, flaring his ridges all at the same time. It was subtle, there one moment and gone the next, but then so was the small shape, and thus, he knew his message had been understood.

Minister of Relief and Reclamation, and the most he had accomplished in weeks was warning one orphan of the dangers of being too curious in the wrong places.

The flicker of movement in his periphery proved his caution justified however, and Elim allowed himself a slight flare of satisfaction in his eye ridges that his little shadow had heeded his warning in time.

The tell was lost in the gloom, for Garak knew none who would follow him had the eyesight to match his. Tain used to admire that skill of his, used to say he had the eyes of a Karlalian huntress.

With a last look at the crumbling edifice his mother had once admired so, Garak followed the good example of his silent watchers, and vanished into the gloom.

00

Elim waited until he was _sure_ he was not being pursued, whether by benevolent agents or malicious ones, waited until he was sure, before he found a relatively intact section of crumbling masonry to slide down, his back going abruptly rigid with pain, his eyelids snapping shut. 

He should _not_ have been able to hear that child’s cries. No one could have heard them, superior Cardassian hearing or not. It was impossible. Unless…

Garak wiped at his moist nostrils, angry at his own foolishness. Tain had made _quite_ certain that such things were impossible…

Elim starred at his fingers for a moment, his hand just drawn away from his face. Gleaming black blood shone oddly in the overcast sky.

Then again, perhaps even Tain could be wrong sometimes.

Garak leaned his head back against the wall, and let loose the first genuine laugh he’d had since he left the Station.

Because what a _delicious_ thought indeed.

00

“I’m fine Colonel!”

Kira looked far from convinced. To be fair, Julian was currently lying on one of his own biobeds, eyeing the standard bioscanner as if it was about to grow teeth and bite him.

His commanding officer stepped closer, careful to avoid boxing him into the space, yet still close enough that he could see the worry lines tracing across her forehead.

She never used to have those, was far too young to have them even now, really. But then, so was he.

“Julian, you were _screaming_.” Mercifully, she left off the _for Garak_. And he knew it wasn’t just because there were people within earshot.

Just as he knew it had nothing to do with Garak being a Cardassian. Julian loved Kira for that, he truly did. But there were just some things he wasn’t prepared to share. That weren’t his to share.

That he didn’t know _how_ to share, even with those he really should share them with.

And as much as he admired and loved Kira Nerys, she wasn’t even _close_ to the top of that admittedly ridiculously short list.

Julian reached for Kira’s hand, their fingers catching in the next moment, knuckles overlaid, gripping and holding.

He barely remembered, now, a time when they hadn’t liked each other. Or perhaps that was just what he told himself, with so few of them left. With so few of this ragtag band of people that war and Ben Sisko made a family still breathing, never mind in the same quadrant.

Julian stared at their hands for a long moment, and kept staring, because he didn’t have the stomach to look his companion in the eye for what he was about to say. “ _Nerys…please_. Let this one go.” Raising his eyes, Julian saw a single tear slip down Kira’s cheek.

He reached out a hand to brush it away, and neither of them flinched from the gesture.

Kira nodded once, her expression hardening over, her hand releasing his. “Keep me informed doctor.” Julian felt a shard of something stab through his chest at the words. His childhood had taught him the art of letting go better than most anything ever could. But he had never quite mastered the art of detachment.

_You feel too much boy, that’s always been your trouble, this_ caring _business._

Julian swallowed, and made himself say, “Of course Colonel.”

Some old habits could never truly be broken it seemed. Even when they really, truly should be.

00

Julian waited until the doors had swished shut on Kira’s worried backward glance, then waited several beats more, whatever caution he’d managed to unlearn from his childhood long since superseded by the even stricter lessons imparted by a near decade long friendship with a former Obsidian order agent. 

When he finally flicked the screen to its proper image, he barely spared the results a glance. There were no answers to be found there.

Oh, it told him something, of course. Told him what he already knew, from the moment he came to in his own damn Sickbay, Elim Garak’s name frozen on his lips, the Cardassian’s scent filling his nose, his voice bouncing through his skull in time with his heartbeat.

Julian squeezed a hand to his eyes, before shooting the screen a quick glance.

Yep, there they were, strands of DNA and gene sequences, as plain as day. Unmistakable.

With an ease that might have once frightened him, or at least given him pause, a prick of conscience, a moment of hesitation, before the War, before Marva IV and trilithium resin, before Camp 371 and the Dominion, before the fall of Cardassia, before Sloan and section 31, he deleted the records, and wiped away the traces of that deletion.

The task accomplished with brutal efficiency, Julian slumped down in his chair, trying to ignore the heartbeats thudding in his head. Three, two Bajoran and one human, by the tone and speed.

He had three assistants currently working in the outer lab. Two Bajorans and one human.

Julian shut his eyes, the blank monitor seeming to watch him ominously.

No, there were no answers to be found in his scanners.

Unfortunately, however, he knew precisely where he _would_ find answers.

00

“What was my designation?” He hadn’t meant to start the conversation like that. Oh, he had certainly intended to be direct, short and rather _not_ -sweet, as it were.

But as so often happened when he saw Richard Bashir’s smirking face through the vid screen, something inside him snapped and snarled, his father no doubt smug in the certainty that Jules was coming crawling back to them, as he always did, as he always would, because after all, just look at everything they, _he_ , had done for the boy. Even went to prison for him, hadn’t he, the ungrateful sod.

Julian sometimes wonders if his father prewrites his self-congratulatory rants.

So yes, things such as _hello_ and _how are you_ rather went out the window before his father even had the chance to open his mouth.

And thus, Julian had the gratifying privilege of watching his parents’ faces grow pale and ashen before either of them has even gotten a word in edgewise.

And if that didn’t sound like something Garak would be delighted by, Julian doesn’t know what does. The thought sobers away any remorse he might have felt at his parents’ expressions. And hardens him to press his homefield advantage.

“Was I a sentinel or a guide?” Was, not am. Past, not present tense. He’s long since learned the folly of giving away too much information too quickly. And since he’s currently looking at the people who ground that lesson into him, well, Julian sees no harm in using it against them.

Unsurprisingly, his mother recovers first. Ever the mediator. “Now Jules, that was a long time ago-” Richard’s words slashed through his wife’s without a care. His father always had enjoyed bullying those closest to him the most.

“All that guff about extra senses and _gifts_ , it’s pure tosh, now isn’t it. I would have thought you of all people would know better than that Jules, what with all your brains and book learning-”

And maybe he truly is channeling Elim, half a quadrant’s telepathic distance or not, because for the first time in his life, Julian hangs up on his parents.

And allows himself to actually _feel_ the swell of triumph that rises in his chest, before the anger and rage and grief crowd back in.

Because, well, there are some of those answers he’d wanted, right there.

After all, Julian learned how to obfuscate and dance around the truth from Richard and Amasha Bashir. He’s long since learned how to hear what his parents aren’t saying, louder than if they’d shouted it at him through a bull horn.

00

“Julian…are you alright?” He heard the bitten off _sir_. And that wasn’t a euphemism. He actually heard it, in his own head, as clear as a bell.

Julian turned from his staring contest with his mug of tea to regard the–well, hardly a boy anymore–young man watching him with worried dark eyes.

His father’s eyes had looked like that far too often, during the war.

Julian swallowed, mustered up a smile from…somewhere. “I’m fine Jake,” those eyes looked unappeased. Jake Sisko may have chosen not to follow in his father’s footsteps, and quite frankly after everything service to Starfleet had taken from the boy, Julian had never managed to muster up one iota of surprise at that, but he certainly inherited the man’s deep concern for those he cared about. 

In that vein, Jake appeared as skeptical as his father used to, when Julian was twenty-seven and trying to explain why _someone_ had replicated several dozen animal balloons and tethered them to the Commander’s chair. And that definitely wasn’t the same someone who reprogrammed the gravity controls in that room to be just a _smidge_ lower. Just a smidge.

Julian never did own up to that particular prank. Partly because owning up would have meant implicating Miles and Jadzia as well, although if Sisko’s retaliation of tie-died uniforms was anything to go by, none of them had succeeded in actually fooling him for a moment.

And honestly, the chair only floated a _couple_ inches off the ground.

Despite everything, Julian found himself smiling at the memory. And at the son standing before him, the son who looked more like his father every passing day.

Julian sometimes hated the ghosts that haunted every corridor of this Station. But not today.

Julian smiled more broadly at Jake, gesturing him to a chair. “I’m fine, really. The raktajino is simply disagreeing with me this morning.” As if for emphasis, Julian pushed the mug–and its offending smell–further away from him.

He’d never really noticed before how much Klingons liked their spices. Worf’s love of prune juice should probably have been a clue there.

And then, because Jake still looked hesitant, hovering on the edge of his chair, because that _sir_ still buzzed loudly in the back of his skull, Julian decided to tell his lifetime’s conditioning in not trusting people to take a momentary vacation to another galaxy. Or at least a short hike across the quadrant.

“Actually, to be perfectly honest, I was just thinking about how quiet it is around here these days,” Julian let just a measure of the crushing emptiness he had felt so often of late filter into his tone, into the slump of his shoulders and the softening of his eyes.

And if Jake’s misty, croaked, “Yeah, me too,” was anything to go by, he’d _finally_ said the right thing to someone.

00

Quark casually trades his mug for a cup of plain Bajoran water a while later, Jake in stitches at Julian’s rather vivid retelling of the Floating Chair Incident, as the _actual_ base incident report had dubbed it.

Julian doesn’t pause in his narrative, knowing his “thank you, Quark” has been heard and acknowledged, despite how _sotto voce_ its utterance was.

It isn’t until Quark is walking away however that Julian finally notices his own hand, raised in a casual wave to the answering gesture of the tiny, squirrel like creature with rather large ears perched on Quark’s shoulder, where she’s always been.

_Pel._ That was her name. Julian had always known that too, somehow.

He turns the gesture into a mimed flutter of balloons being popped by a rather irate Klingon, but the realization is already there, unarguable and clear as day.

Only those with Extra Sensory Gifts, or ESG as the medical community long since dubbed it, can see other’s soul manifests. Or spirit guides, as they were called on Earth of old.

The trouble with being taught to lie and deceive one’s whole life, Julian has long since learned, is that no one quite knows when one is actually telling the truth. Never mind when one is _actually_ lying.

Not even, it seems, the liar themselves.


	3. Not my home

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A memory, an interrogation, and a leap of faith.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> AN: Kardasi words from the dictionary put together by Tinsnip and feltelures, Julian and Elim’s spirit guides will be revealed in a couple chapters.   
> Guardian: ajev, diseased: sedveles, man: duxt, mind: zas, one: tud, diseased one sedveles tud, people (cultural or ethnic group), k’halda, talented, hoss, the, ra-(prefix)

When Elim was five cycles of age, Tain invited a man home for dinner. Normally, such events would have no great significance in Garak’s memory.

But for the fact, the most singular fact, that this time, he was permitted to sit at the table.

Not to eat the food, no, but merely to sit and watch. Watch _what_ , even at five, Elim had known far better than to dare to ask.

The man had left his food untouched for the longest time, his eyes straying over and over to Elim’s stiff, silent form, perched on a too large chair at Tain’s elbow.

Elim remembers daring a slight twist of the head, enough to see Tain’s smirk, as the man had finally, deliberately, picked up the spoon, taken a single sip of the soup, and promptly expired on the table before them.

Tain had taken Elim’s hand in his palm, and laid it against the man’s still heart, and said, “Remember Elim, that this was a good death. And that even a _sedveles tud_ such as this, may be granted a good death.”

Elim hadn’t understood the words, not then.

But a lifetime later, blood clouding his vision and his father declaring his exile with an all too familiar smirk, Elim had been unable to shut his ears to the whispers that had dogged his retreat into exile.

_Sedveles Tud._ The Diseased One.

And in the moment he staggered into the cargo ship’s hold, in the moment he dared turn his head just enough to catch Tain’s expression, to see that familiar smirk, he remembered the eyes of a stranger, spoon poised halfway to a literal last meal, eyes dark with determination instead of fear, yet light with something that, looking back, might just have been _compassion_.

Compassion for the son of his executioner, sitting across from him, laughing in the face of his “good death.”

In that moment, Elim finally allowed himself to remember the sound of that man’s heartbeat, to remember the fact he could hear it, clear across the table.

To remember that he had heard the very moment it had ceased to beat.

_“This was a good death Elim, remember that.”_ Oh, remember it he had.

And as the catch slid shut on his father’s perpetual smirk, Garak finally understood, loud as if it had been shouted from the very rooftops.

_Remember this Elim, and know that_ you _aren’t even worthy of such a_ good _death._

00

Garak is in a meeting when he feels it. His assistant, a far too eager _child_ barely old enough to have been through his first molt, and yet the only soul in the entire building either brave or worthy enough to attend the meetings Garak calls, where he discusses things like _relief_ and _aid_ and _famine prevention_ , actually flares out his scales when Elim stops mid-sentence.

To be fair, it may have had more to do with the most uncharacteristic gasp of pain Elim allows to slip past his lips, his hand ghosting towards his eye socket, the scales pulsing strangely, as if they had been struck a great blow.

Fortunately for both involved, he is not so far gone as to ask aloud, “Can you hear hissing?”

Something seems to wrap about his neck for a moment, almost caressing his neck ridges, the hissing growing louder, more distinct, almost… _Jules needs you_.

Garak blinks at the semi-translucent…he believes it is called a _snake?_ , that has just raised its head towards him. A discreet eye flick at his assistant reveals a carefully concealed panic, but also a clear ignorance of Elim’s sudden companion.

And then, unsure what’s possessing him, Garak _hisses back_. _You must be mistaken, as I know no one by that name._ The snake rolls its eyes at him.

Elim blinked. Perhaps the food shortage was getting to him more than he’d initially thought.

Another eye roll, accompanied by a huffed, _You two deserve each other. Now go get Your Doctor before the Men in Black bury him in a lab somewhere._ Another disdainful huff. _The food would be terrible._ And with that rather…perplexing last, the snake promptly melted back out of existence.

Elim carefully peeled his hand away from a slight dent in the table. _Your Doctor._

Well, it beat _Diseased One_.

And with a faint nod to the vanished snake, Garak rose fluidly yet sedately from his chair, and strode for the door.

Apparently, he had a lunch companion to rescue.

00

“But where are you going Minister?” It’s an unseemly display of emotion, particularly for such hallowed halls of government, crumbling walls or not, a potentially career ending lapse of self-control on the old Cardassia.

On Tain’s Cardassia. Elim froze in the lift’s entrance, his hand sliding smoothly to catch the already closing door. He turned just enough of his body to provide him a clear view of Kesil’s face.

He looked far too emotional, for any Cardassian, in any circumstance.

He looked so very _young_. Elim completed his turn, stepping backwards and sliding his hand away from the door in one smooth motion, and in the moment before the doors slid shut on his assistance’s face, he allowed his eye ridges to flare upwards, instead of down. Warmth, instead of coldness. Trust, instead of reprimand.

Tain is dead. Tain’s Cardassia is _dead_. And it won’t be coming back. Not if his son has anything to do about it.

And so Elim meets his assistant’s wide, desperate eyes through the closing doors and does something his father never did. Particularly not with his own son.

He takes a leap of faith. He _trusts_.

“Why, I’m going to save my guide of course.”

And until that moment, he wasn’t sure, could not find enough information to be sure, all things considered, but somehow, saying it really did make it true.

00

His wrist started hissing, just before he entered Colonel Kira’s office. _Danger, danger, Will Robinson._ Julian blinked at the odd tingling sensation brushing over his apparently naked skin. It was almost like something was twining around his…He drew his wrist closer to his eyes, and then for an unfathomable reason, hissed back. _Hello?_ He blinked, had those been _words?_

Naturally, that’s the moment the doors to Sisk-Kira’s office slid open.

Two well-muscled, very average looking humans stood before her desk. Nerys’ jaw was clenched.

The men’s uniforms declared them Lieutenant Commanders. Their expressions had just the edge of smug glee to the practised blandness.

Julian waited until the door rolled shut behind his back, then could help himself no longer, “It’s been a while since Section 31 paid us a visit. To what do we owe the honour?”

00

Julian wasn’t worried. He wasn’t precisely relaxed either, the orders that had barred Kira from even observing and the bruising rapidly forming over one of his eyes preventing him from _quite_ slouching in his chair.

But it was a near thing. Because, well, these men were hardly on Sloan’s caliber now were they. They hadn’t even managed to _hit_ him properly. Too much knuckle, not enough wrist. Lithe-and-Angry had been massaging his hand discretely for the last five minutes.

A pad was slapped over Julian’s hand, hard, but he refused to give his audience the satisfaction of wincing. Instead, he grasped the pad and flicked it on.

Garak and him having lunch. Julian’s eyes pricked for a moment, for no reason at all. He didn’t let that show either.

“There’s wonderful resolution on this-is that Plomeek soup we’re eating-” The pad was snatched back, and Lithe-and-Angry stalked back across the room to glare in his face. “When was the last time you had contact with this individual, a Cardassian national named…E. Garak.”

Julian snorted. Deliberately. Bulky-and-Tense leaned in as well, an angry leer on his face, “Do we amuse you _Doctor_?” Julian swallowed another snort of laughter, raising his hands in mock surrender. “I’m sorry, it’s just, you’re both rather terrible at this, aren’t you.” It wasn’t a question.

Lithe-and-Angry’s face turned a delightful shade of purple, and Julian decided it was time to stop playing. “Are you trying to accuse me of treason?” Whether they were or not, whether they knew Garak’s real name or not and were merely baiting him, merely pretending to be amateurs, Julian would _never_ give them any information. Not about himself, not about the station or his friends, not even about his parents, as little as they deserved the name.

And especially not about his sentinel. Julian swallowed. It was the first time he’s allowed himself to think that, clear and concise and true.

Lithe-and-Angry and Broad-and-Tense were either actually terrible at their jobs, or giving him a lot of rope to hang himself with, because they said nothing to his avoidance of their question. Instead, they answered his.

“No _Doctor_ , we’re accusing you of murder.” Another pad was thumped down before him, this one already on.

_“Remember these? Romulan mind probes. They’re not the most…pleasant of devices. But they are effective.”_

_An arrogant sneer, cold binders on his wrists, a story right out of the spy novels he’d read as a child._

_A puff of gold vanishing like so much smoke out of the corner of his eyes, almost lost in the storm of burning files and dying mind._

_A guilt that never quite went away, for all that the victim in question was a sentinel, a Starfleet sentinel at that, no matter how covert the department, who would keep his spirit guide chained in the deepest recesses of his own mind like the animal it would never be, no matter the degradation forced upon it._

Julian’s father once gave him blinking lessons, because “You blink too fast Jules, it’s not _normal._ ” Oh how he’d hated that word. Normal. How he’d hated sitting before his father, being told when to blink, when to breathe practically, _“Wait three seconds…No Jules, not like that!”_ He could still hear the sound of his father’s fingers snapping before his eyes, every time he got it wrong. He’d been six.

Looking back, it had been one of his first post-Adigeon Prime “Normality Lessons.” Then, it had just been frustratingly confusing, and oddly frightening. He’d never seen his father look scared before. And Richard Bashir was never a nice man when he was scared.

Julian waited three beats, and then blinked. He’d never been more grateful for his father’s fear than in this moment.

Because it gave him the skills to more than just pass as passingly human, if not exactly normal.

It gave him the ability to look straight into the eyes of an operative of the most covert intelligence agency the Federation had ever denied any knowledge of possessing, and _lie_.

“And how _precisely_ am I supposed to have murdered this man? I’ve never seen him before in my life.”

00

He’s not sure if they believe him or not.

He’s also fully aware that is matters not a jot. Things like proof never do, where they are applied to people like Julian.

Cuffs clicked around his wrists. The cold, hard metal was stronger that last time, tighter. Older. Julian blinked. Of course, they’d had more time to dig up gear suitable for _his kind_ this time.

He held up his bound hands to Broad-and-Now-a-lot-less-tense. Funny that. “Let me guess; custom made to hold Khan Noonien Singh, by any chance?” Lithe-and, oh to hell with it, Thug 1 leered at him. “Nothing _personal doctor_ , we just need to keep your _kind_ contained, is all. You understand.”

_“I misread you. I thought you were just a misguided idealist. But you're a dangerous man. People like you would destroy the Federation if given a chance.”_

Oh, he understood alright. Trouble was, everyone else who did was either dead, in another plain of existence, or on the other side of the quadrant.

Because augments weren’t dangerous, despite what everyone everywhere would argue until they were blue in the face, even though most of them had probably fallen asleep during the Eugenics Wars section in school, let alone met an actual mutant in real live life.

No, augments weren’t dangerous, far from it. But Julian, well, _Julian_ was dangerous.

And Sloan had paid for failing to make that distinction with his life.

00

Julian clunked his head against the back of the cell, relishing the spike of pain the cold durasteel riveted through his skull. Served him right, really.

_Stupid, stupid, stupid Jules!_ There were days Julian wishes he could burn the sound of Richard Bashir’s voice out of his memory forever.

There are days he’s considered trying to do just that.

Julian slid his eyes to the forcefield, idling tracing the pulses of energy as they flowed from floor to ceiling and back down. Down and up, down and up. 

Pulses he shouldn’t be able to see in the first place.

_Why my dear doctor, I had no idea you were adept at keeping such scandalous secrets, how delightful!_

Julian clenched his eyes shut on the pulses of purple-blue light.

He never swore, not even in his own head. Because Amsha Bashir could condone the erasure and rewrite of her only child’s entire personality, but she drew the line at raising a boy who did anything as unseemly as _curse_.

Julian reached once more for the hissing that suddenly seemed to echo around the stillness of the holding area, straining his ears and stretching out a hand.

Only for his fingers to meet empty air. Julian blinked at his outstretched hand for a long moment.

His head connected with the wall with even more force. _Thud._

And, well, his parents could just lump it, because…

_Why can you never damn well drop in at_ opportune _times Garak!_

And, quieter, even though he only dared voice it in the presumed anonymity of his own head, and wouldn’t the object of his thoughts be rolling his eyes at such _naïve_ assumptions, _Damnit Elim…I miss you, alright! I really fucking miss you._


	4. Part 2: First Steps, Chapter 4: Why Hello Doctor!

Thug 2 had a name. Julian blinked moisture out of his throbbing eyes, not even attempting to right himself from the obligingly sturdy bulkhead the latest back hand had just pitched him up against.

“Frank, I don’t think–” Thug 1 rounded on Thug 2, the phase rifle clenched in his hands not _quite_ making the full swing with his body to point in his suddenly-conscience-developing partner’s direction. “Don’t tell me you’re going soft on this _thing_ now Bobby!”

Julian wasn’t sure which surprised him more, the fact one of his assailants–oh, sorry, _lawful arresting officers_ –did in fact appear to draw the line in his own dubious conscience somewhere between beating an unarmed and restrained prisoner and shooting an augment in the middle of a _federation outpost corridor_ , or the fact Thug 1 and 2 were actually named things like Frank and Bobby. Really?

Frank hesitated for a moment too long, his companion making a sound of disgust and pushing his friend away dismissively. There was real aggression in that shove, real anger in the flash of those eyes as they refocused on Julian, and vaguely, somewhere deep in his chest that none of his father’s lessons or his own innate, human fear had ever managed to eradicate, his unquenchable naivete let his foolish, _foolish_ empathy whisper into his mind, _What was done to you, to make you hate us so much?_

And almost as if he read Julian’s thoughts in his eyes, bloody and swollen as they were, Bobby’s face contorted in a grotesque smile, his hand playing across the barrel of the rifle, the distinctive sound of a setting dialing _up_ ringing through the corridor, and Julian found himself remembering far too late that sometimes, people were cruel just because they could be.

“Bobby, he’s not worth it–” Julian forced his leg muscles to cooperate in moving him further up the wall, even as his brain threatened to spit out a distinctly unhelpful, “I have a feeling your old boss would have disagreed with that sentiment!”

Julian’s never sure what would have happened next. Even in hindsight, he knows too little about “Bobby” to ever make a clear judgement call of how it would have played out. If the hatred and cruelty in those eyes was strong enough to make him pull the trigger, or whether he would have drawn the line at murdering an unarmed prisoner. Even one whose humanity was…somewhat legally questionable.

But he never finds out, because, well, he learned his penchant for dramatics in the face of mortal danger from _somewhere_ , now didn’t he.

And speaking of which…

“On the subject of our dear doctor’s worth, I’m afraid we simply _must_ agree to disagree!”

Garak’s clothes are distinctly shabbier than they used to be, his hair a tad longer, his eyes a tad wilder, but in every other way, from the politely acerbic tone to the apparently casual way he was holding the _disruptor rifle_ aimed squarely at “Bobby’s” head, he looked every inch the enigmatic, infuriating being Julian had never managed to get out of his head, not in three years of war, nor three months of peace.

Only the slight flare of his eye ridges alerted Julian to the most distinct change. Garak was _afraid_. Julian swallowed blood, and tried for a jaunty smile, “Perfect timing Garak, as always.”

Garak actually smirked, “But of course my dear”, his tone all offended innocence. Julian was forced to stifle the absurd urge to laugh, the first time in months he’d remotely felt like doing so, by Frank rather rudely re-entering the picture.

“Better lower that weapon you Cardie bastard, or your little catamite over here gets it!” And yes, there was yet another phase rifle pointed at Julian’s heart. How wonderful.

Garak had the audacity to appeared not one iota more alarmed than he’d been a moment ago.

“My, my lieutenant, I would never have imagined someone like you to have such an… _impressive_ vocabulary.” _Someone like you_ , they probably thought Garak meant humans Julian thought, somewhat hysterically, he was forced to admit.

Also, case in point, but trust Garak to know a word like _catamite_. Even Julian, with his big, scary, enhanced brain had taken a moment to place. A laugh did startle out of Julian then, sudden and impossible to supress, because stars but he’d missed this. Missed Elim.

Garak, being Garak, looked equal parts intrigued and _delighted_ at this sudden bout of manic frivolity on Julian’s part. Frank looked like he was wondering if Julian had finally snapped.

Bobby, well, Bobby definitely did _not_ look like he was wondering. “You crazy mutie freak, gonna kill all of us–” And seriously what could Khan have possibly done to this chap, _four hundred years later_ –

The blast sizzled through the air, the stench of burnt flesh filling the corridor. Julian was still doubled over in a flinch at the discharge of Bobby’s phase rifle grazing his shoulder, and thus it took him a moment to piece together what had just occurred.

As he straightened as best he could however, his eyes weren’t focused on the honest to goodness _hole_ in the wall where his head had been a moment before, nor even on the crumpled form of Bobby, moaning quietly and clutching his arm, half charred with disruptor burns, Frank torn between shooting at random and rushing to his “friend’s” aid.

Garak has no such qualms, keeping his disruptor steady but slightly lowered, fixing his gaze on Frank and sounding for all the world like he’s scolding a particularly obtuse _child._

“Well, don’t just stand there, help him!” Julian could almost have laughed at that tone, if his eyes weren’t still riveted on Garak. Or more particularly, on Garak’s shoulders.

At his suddenly very green shoulders…and is that a _tail_?

Julian splayed his bound hands against the wall behind him and shoved, intending to use the leverage achieved to at least _list_ towards Garak. He ends up slumped on the floor instead…and what had been in that sedative they’d forced into his neck before dear old Frank would even contemplate moving him anyway?

Asking about that would probably be useful. So would asking Garak how he’d come to materialize in _this_ precise corridor, and at _this_ precise moment.

So naturally, when Elim’s gaze returns to rest completely on Julian, the first thing out of his mouth is “I didn’t know Cardassian disruptors _had_ a non-lethal setting!”

Garak blinked at him for a beat or two, the genuiness of that momentary surprise warming Julian from the inside out, “My dear doctor, how _delightful_ to find you so unchanged!”

And there is so much warmth and humour, so very little guile or calculation in those words that for the present, Julian forgets to ask why Garak has taken to wearing an iguana around his shoulders like a scarf, and just allows himself to get lost in his sentinel’s eyes.

…where had _that_ come from?

00

“While the current provisional government is _distinctly_ lacking in many areas, ensuring complete diplomatic immunity for all their agents will never be one of them. We _are_ still Cardassian after all.”

The Colonel looked as if she was torn between an angry retort and a full-blown laugh at that.

Anger won. “You just shot someone with a _disruptor_ , in the middle of my station!” Elim shifted casually in his chair, “You say that as if I haven’t done this sort of thing before.”

And it was close, but Garak thought that just might be the only time he’d had the privilege of seeing Colonel Kira stunned speechless. But not for long, fortunately for the continued balance of the universe.

“Garak-” There was real anger in that shout, but worse, real hurt. Cardassians had no word for one’s heart twisting in one’s chest, but nevertheless, that’s what happened in that moment, to Garak’s. “He hurt my guide.”

And Elim cannot fail to recognize the height of irony in that statement. Bitter, cruel, laugh until you want to die irony, that he, a Cardassian, is saying such a thing to a _Bajoran._

That he, a member of the Occupation force, would have the nerve to say such a thing to a woman who, just by simple statistics, must have watched at the very least acquaintances, more likely friends, perhaps even family, be executed on sight, simply because they were _gifted_. Because that’s what the Bajorans called their protectors, their _tainted ones._ Gifts. 

It’s been ten years almost to the day since Tain, since his own father sentenced him to a fate worse than death for the crime of coming online as a sentinel.

A decade living among the Federation, among the Bajorans, a decade of learning, step by painful step, how very _wrong_ his father was to do such a thing. Ten years, and Elim would still never even _think_ of making such a statement out loud. Of revealing such a truth so openly. Or at all, for that matter.

But, well, this wasn’t about him, now was it. This was for Julian.

A hiss echoed against his ear canal, nearly prompting a flinch from Elim with its suddenness. My word, somewhere in former Dominion space Tain’s molecular remains must be positively turning cartwheels.

Kira’s eyes flicked to the snake that had chosen that particular moment to reappear about Garak’s neck, and something softened in the still very potent anger that lurked there.

“Just how good is that diplomatic immunity of yours anyway?”

When Elim grinned, it was all teeth. “Why Colonel, it is unbeatable, naturally.”

Kira smirked. “Naturally.” And there was still anger there, yes. But there was also something else, something Garak wasn’t remotely ready to deal with. Not even after ten years. Possibly not even after a hundred years.

Something that a less cynical man might have called _pride._


End file.
